


is the blood mine or yours?

by thimble



Series: SASO 2017 [9]
Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: 1 Sentence Fiction, Alternate Universe - Overwatch, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-06
Updated: 2017-06-06
Packaged: 2018-11-09 21:06:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11112888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thimble/pseuds/thimble
Summary: 15 - cheat"Love him," his father had said early on, "love him as if he were your own," and it is the one thing he beats his father to, irony in its purest form ("I already do.")[Twenty-five sentences from a murderer's mouth; or, twenty-five regrets from a brother's heart.]





	is the blood mine or yours?

**Author's Note:**

> based heavily on [an overwatch animated short](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJ09xdxzIJQ), and written for [this](http://sportsanime.dreamwidth.org/21522.html?thread=10606610#cmt10606610) prompt.

01 - rigid

A rod sits, unused, in the corner of the dojo—a threat, unspoken, but it's not necessary; his spine stands tall and straight without it, unbowed by storm or gale (at least, it tries to be.)

 

02 - defy

Rebellion is a seed inside his chest, unwatered and left to wither; duty weaves its vines around his ribs and rebellion gets smothered, without a single chance to grow.

 

03 - condemn

His father is as cold as their family name, and the way he regards Tatsuya is colder; when he is older and the servants whisper about him ("he has his father's eyes"), they do not mean it kindly.

 

04 - chastise

He knows it without being told, feels it when he stumbles in training and a gaze bores a hole into his back; he stiffens, bites his lip against the retort, _I know it, I know I am not enough (but I am all you have.)_

 

05 - conceal

There is a room in his father's heart he cannot enter, but in time he will learn—it does not mean that no one else can.

 

06 - bait

They catch the boy red-handed, but instead of cutting it off at the wrist his father looks at the boy in a way he had never looked at Tatsuya (like he was seeing the glimmer of something underneath the coal) and says, "how did you breach our walls?" [cont.]

 

07 - insult

[cont.] The boy—Taiga, he says, when asked—is animated and brash when he answers, as if he's already forgotten that these people can kill him with one stroke, and Tatsuya, helplessly, watches his father thaw.

 

08 - curved

He should have seen it coming—they take Taiga in, dress him in heirlooms, anoint him with their name—yet the blow hits him full force, bruises him to his interiors.

 

09 - attack

Taiga catches up to him maddeningly fast, mastering with instinct what Tatsuya has only with time and practice, and it is painful how easy it is to imagine Taiga rushing past, sometime in the future, sometime soon... [cont.]

 

10 - frustrate

[cont.] ...and it would be easier to hate him for it, if only he did not stare up at Tatsuya in awe after Tatsuya scrapes by a win, if he only did not exhale, all childlike and sincere, "you're amazing, aniki." [cont.]

 

11- steep

[cont.] Tatsuya's life seems like it had been primed for this—a deity on a pedestal, a diver on a cliff's edge—and maybe that's why finally falling does not feel so monumental; he says, "you are, too," and finds that he means it. [cont.]

 

12 - lopsided

[cont.] The compliment allows Taiga's face to bloom, a marigold in the summer, and then and there he takes root in Tatsuya's heart, lodging deep and effortless, an arrow in the wound.

 

13 - shallow

In the breaks they are afforded, they keep to themselves and skip stones on one of the garden ponds; Tatsuya's goes a bit farther than Taiga's and he pumps his fist in the air, something he will later resent—how pathetic is it, that he must now take pleasure in little victories?

 

14 - delight

Taiga makes it difficult to be angry, but that only makes Tatsuya angrier; he is a reminder of Tatsuya's shortcomings, but he is also the balm that makes Tatsuya forget he has them in the first place ("there's no one better than you, Tatsu.")

 

15 - cheat

"Love him," his father had said early on, "love him as if he were your own," and it is the one thing he beats his father to, irony in its purest form ("I already do.")

 

16 - soothe

When his (their) father dies, it is without glory or ceremony; in the silence of the days that follow Taiga buries his face in Tatsuya's throat, seeking comfort, but Tatsuya lingers on his father's dying words ("take care of the clan, little tiger") and wonders why, even now and even here, he still cannot win.

 

17 - absurd

"It's your fault," the words are ring false in his own ears, but he does not know where else to lay blame, "it was your weakness that killed him."

 

18 - crazy

True, that Taiga has strength in spades, but not the constitution; true, that Father's favor spoiled him but did nothing to make him a sufficient heir; there is truth in what he says but it is canceled out by the madness in his eyes when he reaches to his side, and draws his sword.

 

19 - bridge

"Tatsuya," pleads Taiga, a writhing mess of butcher's meat on the walkway from where they used to skip stones, "Tatsuya, _please_." (What Tatsuya will realize later on, when it is too late, is that Taiga did not ask him _why_.)

 

20 - lead

The blood in Tatsuya's mouth isn't his; Taiga did not have it in him to attempt a single killing blow.

 

21 - cover

Fury subsides, high tide retreating from sand—Tatsuya should've known this; he's swallowed it down thousands of times before—leaving him with nothing but a body at his feet and a smear of red upon the shore.

 

22 - discredit

They no longer say he has his father's eyes (they say that his are colder.)

 

23 - lure

Exile and solitude suit him like ascendancy never has; he has lost all reason to return to the castle, but every year, on the anniversary, Taiga's blood on its stones call him home.

 

24 - unwieldy

His bow is an extension of him, but today, of all days, it falters, trembling ever-so slightly at the mention of his name in that familiar voice.

 

25 - dust

The assassin withdraws the blade from his throat, withdraws the chance to turn him to ash as well, and for a moment, anger and bitterness flares again when it shouldn't— _no, give me this, give me what I deserve._

 

bonus:

 

26 - nightmare

"Forgive me," he says, without expectation, and the response that comes is the worst possible one, bringing with it cold and gentle fingertips upon his cheek ("I already have.")


End file.
